


I like my lightning bright and my thunder loud

by brynnmck



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-31
Updated: 2009-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Really?  That's the best you could do?"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I like my lightning bright and my thunder loud

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent post-finale fic. Title stolen from Kris Delmhorst's ["Hurricane."](http://www.krisdelmhorst.com/lyrics/hurricane.html)

He moves back toward his tent on numb legs, field-green blurring into sky-grey around him like a waterlogged painting. When he'd walked into that tomb on Kobol and suddenly found himself somewhere else entirely, grass under his feet and staring up at familiar/unfamiliar patterns pricked into the dark sky above him, _that_ had felt real. Clear. Now he's wandering through the middle of an entirely different picture, hoping that maybe he'll find the edge and tumble back out into the real world, where his family isn't scattering to the winds, where the Twelve Colonies aren't becoming the twelve thousand frakking isolated clumps of dirt. Climbing mountains doesn't sound like much fun if there's no one left when he comes back down.

He folds back the tent flap almost without looking, and she's inside. Waiting. Arms crossed over her chest and a grin stretched across her face like a constellation.

"'You won't be forgotten?'" she says, voice as low and sardonic as if he'd just tried to beat her straight flush with a pair. "Really? That's the best you could do?"

And he should be surprised but he just… _can't_ be anymore; he thinks it must have been hammered out of him somewhere between the first nuclear holocaust and the discovery of the second. So Kara watching him with mischief in her eyes, daring him to respond—that actually seems like one of the least surprising things in his world.

"Hey," he manages; his throat is a little dry after all. "How can we miss you if you won't go away?"

She throws back her head and laughs, a full-throated cackle that bounces off the canvas walls, finding all the corners. Her hair is bright against the dirty nondescript green of the tent, and she's right there within his reach and he steps forward, fits a hand behind her neck and pulls her in to kiss her.

She's still laughing into his mouth for half a second, till the sound slides into a tangle of sigh and moan and disappears into the curve of her lips against his. Her fingers wind tight into his collar; she smells like soil and sweat and grass. Under his hands, he can feel the muscles of her back, her waist, shifting as she strains closer to him. Even when she's flying—maybe most of all when she's flying—there's always been something rooted about her, something defiantly physical even as she defied physics. The idea of her being able to flicker into nothing at the blink of an eye… he can't make his mind fit around that.

She pulls back, just far enough to rest her forehead against his. He can feel her breath, warm on his wet mouth. He traces her cheekbones with his thumbs.

"That's what you get," she says, between gasps. "For the grenade, during the mutiny."

 _For the…?_ Then he remembers, and all he can do for a few seconds is splutter, because only _Kara_ … "You—you—" How the frak does he even finish that sentence?

"Baltar said I was an angel," she offers sweetly.

He makes a sound caught between a snort and an incredulous laugh. Then he leans back a bit and gives her an elaborate once-over. Shirt untucked, wisps of hair sticking to her temples, dirt and oil underneath her fingernails. He grins and tugs at the hair wound around his hands. "Well, you're the messiest angel I've ever seen."

And she laughs again, the kind of signature Kara giggle that starts low in her stomach and bubbles out through her throat, ending on a sweet, clear burst of sound that tugs at something in his chest. Gods, he hasn't heard her laugh like that enough. Her eyes are bright.

He pulls her closer, wanting to feel her solid against him, but he's daring to hope now, daring to think that for once, the other shoe might not drop after all. Joy is straining against the weight of his reserve, streaming through cracks in the hard-won cynicism of a thousand disappointments and setbacks, and he takes a deep breath and lets go, lets it fill him. He can see the reflection of it in Kara's face, the way that she's mirrored him for so long, match or opposite. If there's one thing he's learned from all of this, it's not to waste a moment, and he'd meant it when he'd said that _what_ she was paled in comparison to _who_ she was.

He takes another breath. "So you've got the disappearing thing down, huh?" He arches one eyebrow. "What else can you do?"

Her grin goes wide and wicked. "I dunno," she says. She catches her bottom lip between her teeth. "Wanna find out?"


End file.
